Comparative Politics

In this chapter I draw from my own experience with qualitative, case study research to offer some guidelines on designing this kind of projects. Qualitative researchers seek to explain puzzling within-case transformations or variation in events and institutions across a limited number of cases. Our empirical research unpacks the historical, social, and political processes that explain these outcomes. I argue that it is essential to begin the research by proposing a theoretical model of the sequence or pathway linking cause and effect in positive cases. This sequential account should identify the steps in the causal chain and mechanisms that explain the flow of causal energy that brings about the outcome of interest. I also suggest that doing so involves providing a stylized description of a "field" of action on the basis of three parameters: the actors involved with their preferences, logics of action, and resources; the spaces of action where these actors act; and the consequences of the interactions between them. After conceptualizing these three parameters, and illustrating them with examples, I contend that this type of theorization can help researchers discipline three additional components of the research process. First, I discuss how sequential models serve as roadmaps during fieldwork. Second, I suggest that sequential models facilitate the identification of relevant rival explanations. And third, I show how they can assist the case selection strategy.

This study examined the Youth Political Participation in Nigeria, focusing on Kwara State as a case study within the period of 2011 and 2015. The study adopted quantitative method of research based on the three variables of voting behaviour, party membership/attachment and protests or demonstration in the last two years. However, this area of study is just developing in this part of the world. The life cycle-factors and generational effects are considered to be responsible for the low level of participation in advanced democracies, apart from those two, the period effect of colonialism, incessant military intervention in politics and a relative subjective political culture and poor political socialization are responsible for the low level of youth political participation in Nigeria. A well structured, closed and open-ended questionnaire was administered on 350 respondents in six (6) local government of the state, two per senatorial districts in the state selected through a combination of simple random and quota sampling techniques .The questionnaires were administered to people between the age brackets of 18-35. Since there is no generally acceptable definition of who is a youth, this study however decided to adopt the definition of who is a youth according to the 2009 Nigeria's National Youth Policy who defines youth using the age bracket 18-35.Data gathered were analyzed using percentile, bar charts, tables and logistic regression model. Findings revealed that Kwara youth are likely to engage in conventional mode of participation than unconventional mode of participations with variations. Voting in general election is the prefer pattern of conventional participation. Furthermore, apart from age, local government of residence, years of residing in the local government, level of education, marital status, and occupation have a significant influence on youth political participation in Kwara State.

Zarria y Maschke presentan la evolución que ha tenido El concepto de lo político en castellano y luego se presenta el texto completo de El Concepto de lo Político, versión de 1927.

INDICE
Introducción
Versiones de El Concepto de lo Político desde 1927 a 2018
Proposiciones estructurales de El Concepto de lo Político versión de 1927
El Concepto de lo Político [1927]

Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”. This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism. On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.

Table of contents :
About the author......Page 12
Summary......Page 13
Tables and figures......Page 20

1 Introduction: socialism is popular......Page 23
The pervasiveness of socialist assumptions......Page 32
Socialism and social democracy......Page 39
A lazy straw man?......Page 43
Not for a lack of trying......Page 56
The straw men that were once alive......Page 76

2 Soviet socialism......Page 81
Stalin’s pilgrims......Page 85
Remnants of Soviet apologetics today......Page 108
Conclusion......Page 116

3 Maoist socialism......Page 122
Mao’s pilgrims......Page 124
Remnants of Maoist apologetics today......Page 134
Conclusion......Page 136

4 ¡Hasta Siempre, Comandante!......Page 138
Castro’s pilgrims......Page 142
Why is Cuba different?......Page 150

5 North Korean socialism......Page 154
Kim Il Sung’s pilgrims......Page 155
Remnants of North Korea apologetics today......Page 168

6 Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge: ‘The kingdom of justice’......Page 177
7 Albania under Enver Hoxha: ‘The working class is in power’......Page 199

8 East German socialism......Page 206
Western admirers of the GDR: the early years......Page 212
Western admirers of the GDR: the later years......Page 220
Remnants of GDR apologetics today......Page 227
A note on pro-GDR revisionism......Page 234

9 Socialism of the twenty-first century......Page 239
Chávez’s pilgrims......Page 254
After the zenith......Page 262
Coming full circle......Page 269

10 The aftermath: not real socialism – again......Page 275
Haidt’s social intuitionist model and Caplan’s theory of ‘rational irrationality’......Page 282
Intuitive anti-capitalism, or anti-capitalism as a default position......Page 300
The Gary Lineker fallacy......Page 309

Conclusion......Page 315

11 Epilogue
An alternative history: real socialism is being tried......Page 326

References......Page 382
About the IEA......Page 396

Table 1 Support for regulation......Page 28
Table 2 Distribution of seats in the new People’s Chamber......Page 332

Figure 1 Support for public ownership by sector (in %)......Page 25
Figure 2 Support for public ownership by sector (in %)......Page 26
Figure 3 Support for price controls by sector (in %)......Page 27
Figure 4 Support for a larger state (in %)......Page 29
Figure 5 Economic Freedom scores......Page 41
Figure 7 Poverty in China, 1981–2013 (poverty line = $3.10 PPP per day)......Page 133
Figure 8 GDP per capita (PPP), Albania vs. Romania and Bulgaria, 1985–2017 (in current international $)......Page 200
Figure 9 GDP per capita (PPP) in Chile and Venezuela, 1980–2016......Page 244
Figure 10 Oil prices in current $US, 1989–2017, by presidency......Page 246
Figure 11 Key governance indicators, 2000–2015......Page 248
Figure 12 Global GDP per capita over time (in constant international 1990$)......Page 301
Figure 13 Global population and global poverty, 1850–2010......Page 302
Figure 14 Global average life expectancy at birth (years), 1870–2015......Page 303
Figure 15 Annual number of hours worked per worker......Page 304

The article presents a critical analysis of the existing order of globalism, which imposes Western values and constructs on the human universe. This in turn leads to adverse results. It produces tensions, wars, conflicts and racial and cultural divides. Alternatively, this analysis puts together ideas from the Ancient Egyptian vision of world order and universal stability with contemporary experimental modes of governance, as represented by Egypt's post-revolution (2011-2013) model. The innovative kind of governance that the model embodies was born out of Egypt's historical identity, the national character of Egyptians, and the unique societal fabric of integrated diversity that rejects extremism and western-imposed models. This article also invokes some ideas on conceptualizations of governance from China, to propose an out-of-the-ordinary and a new paradigmatic path. This article proposes a new paradigm of and for governance, nationally and globally. It is largely informed by analysis of the recent experiment in Egypt following the two-phase Revolution (2011-2013), in which a nonviolent popular movement by the people removed two Presidents, former President Mubarak and former President Morsi, within a period of two years. Removal of these Presidents, who were disapproved of by the majority of the population, was the central demand of the people. Millions remained in the streets, particularly in the central Tahrir Square in Cairo, until their demand was met. In addition to ideas derived from Egypt's nascent experiment in governance, other ideas from various sources were integrated to provide a basis for formulating a new model of governance that combines the global, the national and the local. The paradigm integrates analytical criteria in a new way. These and other ideas were recently presented at the roundtable held at the World Bank Headquarters, Washington, D.C., on 5-6, November, 2018. * This Roundtable † was sponsored by the World Academy of Art & Science and the World University Consortium with the goal of exploring "the governance challenges and * See http://worldacademy.org/conferences/governance-law-dc-nov-2018 The event was conducted in collaboration with The Millennium Project http://www.millennium-project.org, "which connects futurists around the world to improve global foresight." It was founded in 1996 after a three-year feasibility study with the United Nations University, Smithsonian Institution, Futures Group International, and the American Council for the UNU. It is now an independent non-profit global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities. The Millennium Project manages a coherent and cumulative process that has been collecting and assessing judgments from over 3,500 people since the beginning of the project. † The Roundtable stated that "[t]he rapid evolution of society continues to outpace the development of institutions to guide, monitor and manage the increasing range and magnitude of the opportunities and challenges that arise. The growing gap between the needs of humanity and its prevailing system of institutions severely retards our collective progress and threatens to undermine the developmental gains of the past half century and achievement of the ambitious goals set for in the SDGs."

Da dove nasce la politica? Cosa la lega alla terribile guerra - quella intorno a Troia - che la precede e in qualche modo la determina? Qual è il suo rapporto con la libertà e con il male, con la giustizia e con il potere? Sono le domande essenziali che attraversano questo libro, in cui la ricerca sull'origine della politica fa tutt'uno con quella sul suo destino.

  Ma l'elemento di particolare interesse è che tali domande sono poste alle due maggiori pensatrici del secolo, Hannah Arendt e Simone Weil, da uno dei loro più sensibili interpreti. Da questo punto di vista il libro costituisce il primo «corpo a corpo» tra due pensieri che della politica hanno fatto il loro oggetto privilegiato. E tuttavia, nonostante la loro singolare prossimità spirituale e anche biografica - entrambe donne, entrambe ebree, entrambe segnate dall'esperienza della persecuzione e dell'esilio - Hannah Arendt e Simone Weil danno risposte profondamente diverse ai grandi interrogativi che ancora ci inquietano. La Grecia, Roma, la tradizione cristiana, la modernità, il totalitarismo novecentesco sono i «luoghi del tempo» in cui si snoda questo appassionante confronto a distanza.

Many writers reject the notion of universal human rights, insisting on their historically recent, Western-secular character. Other theorists emphasise mutual exchange between human rights and systems such as Confucianism, Buddhism, or Islam. They celebrate a common ground that would appear, moreover, to enhance the case for universality. This article acknowledges that common ground but rejects the view that it can strengthen the case for universality. Any such 'exchange', far from mutual, turns out to be dictated entirely by human rights. Familiar rhetoric about the supposed flexibility of human rights law, which would suggest genuinely interactive relationships between it and other belief systems, flatly contradicts its higher-law claims. Genuinely flexible human rights could only ever arise either (a) in the trivial sense that any broadly formulated legal rule ends up applied to a range of situations, or (b) in the untenable sense that human rights law would accommodate serious violations.

Reviewer: Stefan Plaggenborg

Studies conducted in comparative history have focused on the Ottoman and Russian Empires mainly in the context of the history of empires ; however, they have hardly examined them in relation to one another. While access to sources and literature requires scholars to be proficient in the relevant languages, the comparative approach poses a challenge in itself. Comparative history is an intellectual operation structuring and organizing history in a way that is not inherent in history as a sequence of events. Hence, comparative history must not only carefully explain why something has to be compared and what is being defined as the tertium comparationis, but also what exactly the reader can understand better with the aid of such a comparison rather than without it.

It is thus recommended to read Brisku’s book from this perspective.

This report addresses the relationship between public opinion, political discourse and policy responsesin the context of the so-called refugee crisis. In doing so, it speaks to the literature concerned with the saliency, polarisation and politicisation of migration, but shifting the focus from the politicisation of immigration to the politicisation of responsibility. Rather than about how migration is covered, perceived and responded (in terms of political discourse and policies), the questions at stake regard the meaning of responsibility, namely who is responsible, for what and to whom, both at the national and European levels. To answer such questions the report draws upon CEASEVAL WP5’s analyses and
country reports, trying to identify patterns of politicisation across eight country-cases. Ten keyfindings emerge from the analysis: The discussion on responsibility vis-à-vis refugees in Europe has
become an issue of politicisation across countries (i), and it has generally turned towards more restrictive positions (ii). The very meaning of responsibility differs in each context, depending on
country-specific issues related to immigration (iii). Whom responsibility is due in the first place tends to be framed within a broader discussion about the imagined community of people deserving rights, recognition, and responses (iv) and - across countries and parties – it varies from narrow conceptions centred on the national interest to a broader one focused on refugee protection (v). Despite certain variation, three main groups of entities are hold responsible across countries: European Institutions, Member States and the national government (vi). Politicisation (i.e. high salience and high polarization) is observed in most of the countries analysed (vii) and in both the political arena and the media sphere (viii). Hegemonisation (i.e. high salience and low polarization), emerge as novel and interesting pattern in different countries (e.g. Hungary and Bulgaria), calling for further research and
theoretical speculation (xix). Finally, significant cross-national variation is observed regarding the viable solution to the crisis of solidarity in the EU, where some countries (i.e. Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany) call for “more Europe”, while others (i.e. Finland, Hungary and Bulgaria) ask for “less Europe” (x).

This policy recommendation paper includes a comparative analysis of issues in American and Chinese foreign policy towards North Korea. It encompasses insights from Loren Baritz and Chinese Tianxian philosophy (the latter in which influences Chinese foreign policy). Finally, it includes a mock nuclear deal designed to denuclearize North Korea in exchange for economic, diplomatic and cultural incentives.

Puzzled by “authoritarian resilience” in China after the “third wave” of democratization in the late 20th century, scholars began to delve deeper into how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fortified its power by tolerating limited public participation in politics. In this vein, the CCP came to embrace the internet as a tool to both improve governance and enhance control, particularly through the collection and analysis of online public opinion. A fast-growing but under-studied case of this phenomenon is the Message Board for Local Leaders (MBLL, difang lingdao liuyanban). Run by People’s Daily Online and also accessible via a dedicated app and through WeChat, the MBLL lets netizens leave public messages for provincial, city, and county governments, which can either ignore the message or respond publicly.

Faced with unresponsive and intimidating state institutions, citizens often need to rely on brokers to obtain state benefits. This article compares the ways in which brokers help people gain access to public services in two Indian states. Using ethnographic fieldwork in both states, we compare Bihar and Gujarat to argue that the evolution of the informal networks through which citizens gain access to public services constitutes an important dimension of democratisation processes. In both Gujarat and Bihar such brokerage networks have fragmented considerably over the last 40 years, while also becoming less marked by social hierarchies. This change has taken place despite a differing role and strength of political parties in the two states. The fragmentation and levelling of brokerage networks have enabled citizens to put more pressure on state institutions and power holders. This process of “informal democratisation” suggests that the comparative study of brokerage networks constitutes a promising and largely unexplored avenue to interpret the challenges facing governance and local democracy in India.

يقصد بسردية الدولة نسق الأفكار والمعتقدات والصور الذهنية حول مركزية الدولة وحيوية وظائفها للأفراد والمجتمعات والسياق العالمي وتتداخل في إطارها ثوابت الجغرافيا وروافد التاريخ والذاكرة الجمعية للشعوب والمكانة الجيوسياسية للدولة وموقعها في محيطها الإقليمي والدولي لتنتج سردية متفردة وذات خصوصية لكل دولة بالمقارنة بالدول الأخرى، كما تعزز هذه السردية المواطنة والانتماء باعتبارهما الركن الرئيس لهوية الفرد مقارنة بالانتماءات لدوائر ما دون الدولة مثل القبيلة أو الاثنية أو الطائفة أو ما فوقها مثل الانتماء الإقليمي أو العالمي.